Bathroom Safety

What do grab bars and footballs have in common? Actually both are attempted by amateurs, but professional application requires knowledge and skill. That may be a stretch, but hopefully we captured your attention and you will read on about grab bars which we know most people don’t find nearly as exciting as watching their favorite team in action.

People aren’t usually excited when we suggest that they may want to install a grab bar or two. They believe that a person needs to be totally infirm, or older than they are, in order to need a grab bar. We hear statements like “ Well, I don’t want my bathroom to look like a gas station”, “I don’t want to affect the value of my home”, or “When I need one, I’ll have my brother Bobby run over here and put it in.” We don’t believe that grab bars have to look horrible, they don’t detract from value or beauty when done properly, and we have burning curiosity about how a person is going to anticipate the exact moment of need and get “brother Bobby” over there the day before they fall. We know grab bars installed after the fact aren’t nearly as life saving as those thoughtfully installed well before the need arises.

Here’s the deal. All people, at any time of their lives reach out and grab things when they start to fall. A grab bar is simply something designed to be grabbed. It stays put when you grab it as opposed to a towel rack or a walker, or the corner of a dresser. A grab bar used for balance instead of something unreliable like the corner of a sink, doesn’t contribute to the risk of falling. Also, who says grab bars need to look medicinal and drab? If that is your choice, fine! We like to use colors to compliment décor as well as increase safety, by making them easier to see. There are over 180 colors we can use with Best Bath System grab bars. We have a client who recently chose a red which matched her wall paper border, but it inspired us as it also matched the color of many Nebraskan’s favorite football team! Now that is an exciting grab bar!

Grab bar color can really be fun and functional, but you also need to keep two other things in mind to make a grab bar actually work for you. We provide professional grab bar installation, but we are often see the results of mistakes people make thinking that selecting and mounting a grab bar is a simple process.

Here is our critical rule number one: Make sure that the grab bar is securely mounted to some structure in the house or with newer technology blind fasteners designed for grab bars. Knowledge and skill with various blind fasteners and blocking techniques allow you to be able to work with critical rule number two.

Critical rule number two: You must put the grab bars where they are needed based on the individual’s abilities and what they are using the bar for. This seems like a simple concept, but you wouldn’t believe how many homes we walk into where the decision for grab bar location was based solely on where the home-owner or handyman could find studs. A grab bar isn’t magic. You have to reach it easily for it to really be any good. Your therapist or our access designers can help you decide placement based on your mobility, height, strength, and how you are using the device while you move.

So, join us as cheerleaders for bathroom safety! Share the news and this video with people who need to know about grab bars – that is everybody! Remember the best time to install is before you need it, give some thought as to where a bar really needs to be placed for maximum effectiveness, and get it installed properly. If you are into color whether to enhance safety or to match décor or your favorite team colors we encourage you to go for it!

Clients Sharing the News

Did you get your message in a bottle?

If someone asked me, what is one of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to accessibility and safety in their home, I would have to say that it is simply not getting started. No one wants to hear the message about home modifications until they actually need it “yesterday!”

We meet people at health fairs, on the street, or they are referred to us. All too often they actually limp up to us or use mobility equipment like a cane or walker, or have already fallen, and when we talk about using equipment or making changes that would increase safety or reduce effort, they tell us “Oh that is great, but I’m not at that point yet.” We hear it so often and we’ve talked about creating staff T-shirts that say -When is “That Point”? We know, we know. No one would get that message either. Sometimes we feel like we are shouting out a message that no one wants to hear or perhaps we have a message that is doomed to be lost for years, just like the old message in a bottle.

We know that it is human nature to believe that we are never going to change; we won’t be the ones that have the horrible accidents; and we won’t be the ones whose spouses, parents, or children need us to learn the skills of nurses and therapists. As humans, we believe this right up until the moment that our worlds start to fall apart. We also know that people don’t want to make changes because they don’t know what to do or they don’t know who to turn to for good advice.

There was a great study done by AARP and other organizations that addressed what people wanted to do and what they were actually doing about aging in place. AARP study If you read through the study you’ll see that it confirms the things we see at Home Access Solutions every day. Much larger numbers of people believe they will be living at home all their lives than the smaller numbers of people who are actually taking action to make that dream a reality.

We often work with people facing big problems and our job is to help them find a way to make their home safer, accessible, and easier to live in. Though we’d prefer to help people avoid crises by planning ahead, we think we do a pretty good job of helping clients through crisis by coming up with practical solutions. Our clients think so too. Most of our new work comes from referrals from clients and the health professionals who work with them.

We hope that you will listen to the testimonials from our clients and check out the things people have shared for our web site. Link to testimonials What we really hope is that their comments will motivate you to be among the few who truly prepare for aging in place and that if you ever need the help, you will remember to search out people like us and companies like Home Access Solutions. Accessibility Remodeling and Adaptive Equipment can help you keep going and living life to the fullest.

Why We Love Sure Hands

Picking People Up

People are not the best things to lift: They wiggle or move unexpectedly, you usually need to lift them in an area of the home that doesn’t allow for good body mechanics, and even the smallest adult weighs more than most people are capable of lifting. So what do most family caregivers do? They lift anyway.

Their motivation is usually good. The person they are caring for has to be moved. The caregiver is there to serve. What they don’t realize is that a back injury is just one transfer away- and you don’t know which transfer it is going to be. And just what is going to happen to the person needing to be moved when the caregiver can’t give care anymore?

According to the OSHA website, “Back disorders can develop gradually as a result of microtrauma brought about by repetitive activity over time or can be the product of a single traumatic event. Because of the slow and progressive onset of this internal injury, the condition is often ignored until the symptoms become acute, often resulting in disabling injury. Acute back injuries can be the immediate result of improper lifting techniques and/or lifting loads that are too heavy for the back to support. While the acute injury may seem to be caused by a single well-defined incident, the real cause is often a combined interaction of the observed stressor coupled with years of weakening of the musculoskeletal support mechanism by repetitive micro-trauma. Injuries can arise in muscle, ligament, vertebrae, and discs, either singly or in combination."

http://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/otm_vii/otm_vii_1.html

Many of us therapist spend a lot of time practicing transfers ourselves and teaching others the best ways we know of to manually move people from one surface to another. Unfortunately, many caregivers don’t receive or don’t remember the training and the areas like beds or small bathrooms don’t allow them to employ safe body mechanics. They are often not really assisting someone to move, but bodily moving them. There is some thought that for this type of lift “training caregivers how to use proper body mechanics to lift residents is not an effective prevention measure because lifting the weight of adult patients is intrinsically unsafe”

Safe Lifting and Movement of Nursing Home Residents CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/ergonomics/default.html#lift
The good news is that there are ways to move people that don’t pose risks to caregivers or the people they are moving. It may be simple items like pivot disks or transfer boards, but there are also great pieces of equipment to use when a person is dependent upon others for lifting.

Motorized lift systems can be floor based, wall based, or ceiling based. The motor provides the lifting power. A ceiling based motor can be independently propelled or moved by a caregiver. Ceiling based systems don’t take up floor space and the caregiver doesn’t have to move the weight of the person and the lift.

Home Access Solutions is the exclusive dealer for SureHands Lift and Care Systems in Nebraska and much of Iowa. SureHands is the US distributor for Handimove International, so this is a system of products used around the world to help people stay in their homes. I chose to represent this product when I was looking for solutions for my clients, because of 3 things: flexibility, reliability, and the philosophy of the SureHands and Handimove companies. www.surehands.com

Problems with transfers drives too many people out of their homes and hurts too many caregivers! Don’t let that happen to you or someone you love! You can visit the Surehands web site at, give us a call at 402-291-9514 and talk to us about an evaluation to determine the right system for you. Please forward this video to people you know who really need to learn about safe ways to transfer. i.e. pick people up!